OH: A Bizarre Attachment to Gender Identity via LEGO.

Thursday evening, crowded Metro elevator in the suburbs. A little girl, about five years old with two dark blond ponytails, stands with her dad. She is clutching a LEGO creation.

Stranger Lady, who is a loud talker: "WOOOowww do you have more of those at home?" (referring to the LEGO).

I assume the girl answered somehow, but the elevator was crowded, so I couldn't see the exchange.

Stranger Lady: "That's good, so you can build more COOL things at home. Do you have the PINK LEGOS?" (Expert enough on LEGO to know that there are pink ones, but amateur enough to use the 's' on the plural.)

Dad, tentatively: "Ummmm, yeah, we've seen those, but we haven't gotten any yet."

Stranger Lady: "Oh yeah they have PINK ones for GIRLS. They're great... " (goes into her own ownership story of pink LEGO)

Elevator doors open, people start filing out. Stranger Lady calls after the dad and girl. "You'll love them. They're PINK. For GIRLS!"

Sigh.

I wasn't aware that actually this was a thing until my coworker came up to me whilst I was researching pink LEGO options. I'd come upon this page, and noticed the words in red: "Retired Product." This began a conversation about pink, girly LEGO, and a coworker informed me that there had been a big controversy about it a few years ago.

As a girl who loved tiny pencils, Barbies, and Strawberry Shortcake dolls as much as I loved building forts, playing football, and Star Wars figures, I don't think we should get rid of all girly toys. I DO think that loud-talker, who was not far from my age, should have fucking known better. If you like pink LEGO, you go play with them, lady. We don't need to be telling girls that they should like pink and princesses any more than we should be telling boys to like football and shooter games. Why does this still happen?

Just FYI, the pinkest, foofiest LEGO sets that I could find, using the "girls" search tag on the site and refining to "Disney Princess," are the disturbingly romantic-sounding Sleeping Beauty's Royal Bedroom and Ariel's Magical Kiss.

They are both sold out.